Stories of the Street

[The_Fiddler]

So, I've been obsessed with "Stories of the Street" lately, but I'm getting frustrated because I really have no clue what is means. Even lines like "We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky" that resonate with me very deeply don't really make complete sense to me. I read somewhere that Cohen was in Havana around the time of U.S.-Cuba tensions in 1961, but I can't even find much information on that.

Does anyone have any idea what the song is "about", whether by Cohen's inspiration or their own analysis?

[RegularCliche]

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[seadove]

I think he wrote this song when he was in the Chelsea hotel. The inspiration came to him as he was watching the streets from his balcony.

[GinaDCG]

Stories of the Street is one of my favorites. "We are so small against the stars/So large against the sky" -- captures for me the inner tug between narcissism and self denigration. A view of the night sky can make any of us feel transient and insignificant. But when we catch sight of someone else or (via a picture) our own silhouette we then seem to dominate the landscape. Which is true? In a city -- particularly a mega city such as NYC -- this contradiction is even more pronounced as each of us knows we are an individual but no better or worse then the millions of individuals around us - which makes the last line so perfect: "And lost within the subway crowds/ I try to catch your eye." There are millions of people here, and I know there are millions of people here, but I want you to look at ME!

And of course, the morals our implied narrator tries to draw from his view of these various individual stories which make up "the street" center on our individual, and collective, consumerism. Our collective lives of driving and purchasing have trapped us all: "you are locked into your suffering/ And your pleasure is the seal." The individual has become increasingly captive to "the street's " consumerist drive. Even infants are born into a situation wherein their parents (and the society) have a "blueprint" all ready for them to follow: the blueprint of school, college, good job - all so he/she can become a good consumer. Which is a pretty bleak picture set against the individual possibilities of a life": hence, "one eye filled with night."

And as I write this I realize that the image of the street in this song (written in Cohen's younger days) feeds directly into his later "Boogie Street" image -- though now with a more charitable, Zen-like take on the whole rat-race consumerism thing.

And - I do not wish to besuch a narcissist as to think that anyone else keeps track of my posts and notes that I begin each contribution to a different song thread with "this is one of my favorites." If anyone has noticed: Guilty as charged. Whichever song I'm listening to or contemplating, is one of my favorites.

[holydove]

I too LOVE this song; and there is sooo much is those lyrics, but I will make an attempt (feeble though it may be) to explain some of my interpretation.

Basically, I think Leonard is describing his perception of the immense suffering of humanity, the chaos in the world, and his attempt to balance this macrocosmic suffering with his own personal needs & suffering, with his spiritual longings, and with his need for some kind of emotional/spiritual comfort or resolution; his need to find a way to make it all manageable in some way.

There are some amazing Buddhist teachings here: "O lady with your legs so fine, O stranger at your wheel, you are locked into your suffering, and your pleasures are the seal"; this describes the first two Noble Truths as taught by the Buddha: 1: Life is suffering (or sometimes translated as discontent) 2: Suffering is caused by our grasping for pleasure, and our aversion to pain. Our desire to seek out, and hold onto whatever brings us pleasure, creates a cycle of suffering, because the pleasure inevitably turns into pain. And our non-acceptance of pain causes us to continually push away certain experiences, and that creates suffering. Therefore, the "pleasures" ultimately "seal", or lock us into, the suffering.

"with one hand on a hexagram and one hand on a girl, I balance on a wishing well, that all men call the world": the hexagram, I believe, represents his quest for spiritual truth/answers to questions about life (the I Ching, which he studied, uses hexagrams to represent natural cycles, and to give messages related to questions asked by the seeker). The "girl" represents his quest for emotional fulfillment/love/personal connection/etc. The "wishing well", I believe, might refer to the Buddhist teaching that the "human realm" is the realm of desire (there are 6 realms of existence: god, demigod, human, animal, hungry ghost, & hells); each realm is driven by one of the six main negative emotions. The human realm, it is said, is driven by the emotion of desire. So here Leonard is trying to balance his spiritual longings with his personal/emotional longings, while navigating this realm of desire, which is filled with suffering, and which is commonly known as "the world".

"we are so small between the stars, so large against the sky": similar to what GinaDCG said, I think this might have to do with relativity. When we "measure" our personal little lives against the immense space that is between the stars, we are very small. Without the boundaries created by the space between stars, there is no reference point, and then we may perceive ourselves to be quite huge. So perhaps we are very insignificant, and very significant, at the same time. Who is to say what is big and what is small, what is important, what is not important. . .

Alot more can be said about all the lyrics in this song/poem, but I will leave it here for now; especially because my computer makes it very difficult to type more than a certain amount in the space for replies on this website!

[John Etherington]

I see "Stories of the Street" as a song of polarities, that perceptively weighs possibilities with the terror of annihilation, and reality with dreams...

"one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose".

"one eye filled with blueprints, one eye filled with night".

"...we will find that farm and grow us grass and apples there and keep all the animals warm.
take me to the slaughterhouse, I will wait there with the lamb".

"With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl
I balance on a wishing well that all men call the world".

The song is remarkable in capturing the apparent fragility of our existence and the shadow side of the Sixties.

I've recently been thinking that the line "the middle men are gone" was very prophetic, because now we can see this happening.

[seadove]

This is not the only remarkable and unusual song that Cohen dished out. I find "True love leaves no traces equally remarkable and quite unusual.

The question is..... Leonard Cohen did not sing these two songs in any of his gigs, as far as I know.

Why??

[GinaDCG]

I have Stories of the Street song by Cohen ALSO on a "Songs from the Coffeehouse;" one of those (usually) marvelous compilations Starbucks puts together to market at their front counter to the famously music-obsessed Baby Boomers as we wait for our lattes and cappis. IMNSHO the track from "Coffeehouse" is the better, and, (I believe) is not a studio recording. (somebody correct me if I'm wrong here.)

And Holy Dove: ditto. "What oft was thought but ne'r so well expressed."

[holydove]

John E., I love your interpretation about Leonard's expression, in this song, of the fragility of our existence. He does seem to be describing a very precarious balancing act in the lines you mentioned (e.g., suicide & rose, hexagram & girl, cities broke in half. . .)

But I don't understand how blueprints & night would be polarities - I thought those two referred to kind of similar ideas, with blueprints representing how the infant's life is predetermined by the expectations of a conformist-oriented society, and night representing the darkness of ignorance/age of kaliyuga/no light shining on the truth/etc. Although the "hauled in like a kite" could signify polarity, in that the kite could represent a kind of tension between freedom and limitation.

Would you care to explain what you mean about the blueprints & night imagery? Thank you. . .

[John Etherington]

Hi holydove,

I actually wrote that when I was meant to be leaving the house, but felt like contributing...so it was really just a series of sketches. However, I saw "blueprints" as archetypal images forming for future possibilities, and night as a black void (which I guess is what you're saying, in a different way).

All the best, John E

[imaginary friend]

Blueprints: plans/guides for projects to be built in the future, thus implying looking forward and hope.

Night: a (scratch that – the) metaphor for darkness, despair. The opposite of hope.

John E. your interpretation resonates – thanks!

[John Etherington]

imaginary friends - thanks...that says it even better.

[holydove]

John E & imaginaryfriend: Wow - I never would have thought of "blueprints" as representing something positive - but if we assume that the structure of the imagery is repeating throughout the song, it would make sense - very interesting, thank you for your input.

[The_Fiddler]

Wow, thank you all so much for the in depth analyses. I sure have a lot to think about!